Meeting a Lutheran friend...

Recently, I met a friend of mine who is from one of those independent church. Lutheran I suppose.

We were talking about our differences in doctrines and the first topic is Purgatory. He said that this place is not written in the bible and so it is wrong to think that such a place exist. I tried to explain to him but I couldn't because we had no bible with us nor could I quote him the line. And to be honest, I am not very sure as this is certainly not an issue that would affect my faith.

However, he made another point stating that we do not need purgatory for any redeeming effects as our death is sanctifying and St Paul said that the dead would be "sleeping" till Jesus comes again, thus there is no "waiting area" at all.

Then he seems to imply that Luther was a kind of a hero for bringing about this separation as our doctrines are wrong as some of them are not based on the bible.

Another issue is our belief that faith and good works are together. Their stand is that good works is the spin-off from the faith in Jesus whereas having faith in Jesus is good enough to be saved.

Baptism is not for original sin but for your past sin, in fact they don't seem to have this concept of original sin.

And by not becoming a christian, or following Christ, those not Christians (explicitly rejecting the call to be a christian) would go to hell.

I felt disheartened. It seems the rift between the Catholic Church and these deviant doctrines would take a longer time to be reconciled, if at all.

And I am not proud of myself for I am not armed theologically to defend my Church.